Command Application (Charger10k)

[Charger10k]

Byond Key: Charger10k

Character Names:

- Honcho Khanna, Security Officer

- Triton Kessler, Anomalist

- Kanoa Tangaroa, Quartermaster

How long have you been playing on Aurora?: Most recently, since October of 2020, although I’ve dabbled for month-long periods back in 2018 and a few times prior.

Why did you come to Aurora?: I’ve been playing SS13 on and off since about 2014, and when I opted to make a return last year, I checked up on a few servers I recalled enjoying. Aurora stuck with me this time around, most likely due to the fact that it’s the highest quality hrp server currently on the market.

Have you received any administrative actions? And how serious were they?: No. N/A.

Please provide well articulated answers to the following questions in a paragraph each. 

Give a definition of what you think roleplay is, and should be about:

    Roleplaying is a form of story-telling, plain and simple, and the meat of any good story should lie with its characters. Thus, the highest obligation of a quality roleplayer is to make their character compatible with their setting, realistic in their mannerisms and belief systems, and compelling enough to drive a story, while also ensuring that their collaborators have an equally enjoyable experience and aren’t overshadowed.

What do you think the OOC purpose of a Head of Staff is, ingame?:

    Heads of Staff don’t really have a distinct OOC purpose separate from their IC purpose. I’ve seen a lot of applications discuss how heads of staff are supposed to engage with new players, set an example for their department, take up a leadership role in times of hardship, blah blah blah blah. Don’t get me wrong, this is all true, but these aren’t obligations unique to the OOC aspect of playing a Head of Staff. Consider an IRL equivalent of the Head of Security, the security shift lead at a distribution center. Guess what? Creating a work culture for their shift, training and engaging new employees, assigning workloads, making sure employees have a positive experience during work, etc., these are all duties expected of that shift lead. I’d make the argument that any Head of Staff character not fulfilling their “OOC purpose” as a command character wouldn’t be performing the IC functions of their occupation, making them susceptible to termination. All in all, this question is trivial.

What do you think the OOC responsibilities of Whitelisted players are to other players, and how would you strive to uphold them?:

    This is where it gets ugly, where the IC motivations of a character and the OOC relationship between players begin to conflict with each other. Generally speaking, us being on a roleplaying server, our greatest responsibility to each other is to play a compelling, realistic, story-forwarding character, making it engaging to interact with our compelling, realistic, story-forwarding characters. That being said, we can consider several fringes cases in which strict adherence to our characters’ motivations could ruin the experience of another player by excluding them from the round or otherwise offending them. Consider the case of a Solarian Research Director, whose opinion of “uplifted” species such as Tajarans is rather negative. During one shift, he plans an expedition, and invites every other member of the science staff along except for the Tajaran scientist on duty, because ostensibly, “Dr. M’rsajkldfjkd needs to perform R&D and keep the laboratory running to serve departmental requests”. Now, this deliberate and thinly-veiled exclusion of the Tajaran scientist fits in perfectly with the RD’s motivations, and is just covert enough to avoid any IC retribution by CCIA should the scientist opt to file an IR. HOWEVER, from an OOC perspective, the RD has just withheld a fun opportunity for character interaction and development from the Tajaran scientist’s player. Point being, there are cases in which it’s acceptable to dampen one’s character’s beliefs and actions somewhat to accommodate another player having an enjoyable round.

Could you give us the gist of what is currently happening in Tau Ceti and how it affected your character and their career?:

    The most encompassing way to describe the events of the past few months is as a redistribution of territory. In the midst of the Solarian collapse, various warlords, as well as the Coalition of Colonies and Republic of Biesel, have begun carving up ex-Solarian territories, while the formation of the Stellar Corporate Conglomerate shores up several megacorporate power bases with NanoTrasen serving as nominal top dog. For Honcho, my go-to character, recent events have actually proven fruitful. Konyang, formerly a Solarian outer colony, has now come into its own after declaring its independence and then joining the Coalition of Colonies, and serves as a tempting prospect for Honcho to return to. With a growing service and goods market as liberated synthetics become able to earn their own paychecks, and the majority of his extended family living there, slipping out from under the collective megacorporate thumb of Eridani becomes more and more viable.

What roles do you plan on playing after the application is accepted?:

    To start off, I’ll be restricting myself to Corporate Liaison, Consular Officer, and Head of Personnel. As I build up mechanical competence in a few other departments, I anticipate branching out into Research Director, Head of Security, and possibly Captain over time. My ignorance of even basic engineering and medical concepts precludes me from taking up Chief Engineer or Chief Medical Officer for the forseeable future.

Characters you intend to use for command or have created for command. Include the job they will be taking:

    I’ve created the character Jae-ho Song specifically to serve as NanoTrasen Liaison, and that’ll likely be the character you’ll see for the majority of my trial period, if granted. I intend to promote Kanoa to Head of Personnel given a bit more development time in his current role, but any other command characters I’ll play post-whitelist will be entirely novel.

How would you rate your own roleplaying?:

    By and large, I consider myself to be a competent rper. I’m capable of writing and playing believable characters that fit well into our setting and are (hopefully) able to engage other players. Working to my advantage is the fact that I’m a native English speaker with a reasonably strong grasp of the language, which helps to prevent grammatical inconsistencies from distracting others away from the actual content of my writing. I do, however, find myself somewhat lacking in terms of prose, more specifically the “flowiness” of my writing style. I’m not sure whether it’s my personality or academic background or what, but I’ve noticed that I often sacrifice the readability of my emotes and dialogue to provide clarifying information that’s either unnecessary or able to be expressed in a more concise manner. Essentially, I possess the bad habit of writing to inform over a medium whose entire purpose is to engage and entertain, and I’m currently making an effort to write in a more reader-friendly manner.

Do you understand your whitelist is not permanent, and may be stripped following continuous administrative action?: Yes.

Have you familiarized yourself with the wiki pages for the command roles?: Yes.

[Faye <3]

I've talked to Charger a lot and I think that they're a pretty good writer with realistic, believable characters. I think they would make very good command staff. + 1

[WickedCybs]

Charger plays well realized characters I'd say and doesn't really disappoint. Would be interested in seeing how their command play is.

 

[4000daniel1]

Charger's characters are interesting, and I'd say they are one of the most eloquent roleplayers on the server. And other than that, being a cargo main I can absolutely say Kanoa is competent and fun to have in the Quartermaster role. Would love to see them play command.

[MattAtlas]

I'll make a decision on this somewhere around Friday or Saturday.

Continue to gather feedback in the meantime.

[Muncorn]

Definitely a +1 from me. One of the best writers/roleplayers I've seen both on Aurora and overall in my experience in roleplay, and just being around his characters has taught me a lot about how to better portray my characters ingame and out. I've talked with him a bunch about other aspects of the game; lore and roleplay as a whole as well, and there's no doubt that he's going to do just fine working in command.

[MattAtlas]

On trial until 1MAY2021.

[Omicega]

Charger is a phenomenal writer and almost unparalleled in his ability to create unique, inventive, and just genuinely fun characters. I've enjoyed essentially every interaction with him ICly, and OOCly I know he has the right attitude for playing here in general -- something I'm a hundred percent positive he'll be easily able to translate into high-quality command play!

This is an easy +1 for sure.

[MattAtlas]

Accepted.